MH17 crash: scammers cash-in with fake Facebook pages

Fraudsters are cashing-in on the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 disaster by
creating "distasteful" fake Facebook pages in the names of child
victims, while reports suggest that rebels have looted belongings from the
crash site itself

Flowers and mementos lie on wreckage at the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, near the settlement of Grabovo in the Donetsk regionPhoto: REUTERS

Online fraudsters are attempting to cash-in on the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 disaster by creating "distasteful" fake Facebook pages in the names of child victims.

Users visiting what purport to be the Facebook pages of victims, either out of curiosity or to pay their respects, are shown a single link to a site which offers further information on the crash. But clicking on the link bombards the viewer with a series of pop-up advertisements for various products and gambling websites.

Reports in the Australian media claim that at least six pages have been set up in the name of victims, including Perth children Otis, Evie and Mo Maslin who died when travelling with their grandfather. The Daily Mail reports that similar pages have also been set up in the name of victims from the US and the UK.

Director of the University of Canberra's Centre for Internet Safety Alastair MacGibbon told The Canberra Times that such scams were "extremely lucrative" and common after such disasters: "Crooks are superfast these days at picking up on anything that's remotely topical, and working out how to monetise it from a criminal point of view. It's a really distasteful trend."

Such attempts to cash-in on disasters are becoming more prevalent and have been known to solicit donations for fake charities, or simply to take cash for directing traffic to certain websites. Similar fake accounts were also created in the wake of the previous Malaysian Airlines crash, when flight MH370 went missing between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing.

Facebook has since removed the pages, and a spokesperson said: “We are disabling these profiles as soon as we are made aware of them. We encourage people to block those responsible and report suspicious behaviour to our team of experts via our reporting buttons so that we can quickly take the appropriate action.”

The company has a "real names policy" which means that it can delete any pages shown to have been registered with a false or stolen identity.

A political battle has also broken out on Wikipedia over an entry relating to the crash of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, with the Russian government reportedly removing sections which accuse it of providing "terrorists" with missiles that were used to down the civilian airliner.

A Twitter bot which monitors edits made to the online encyclopedia from Russian government IP addresses (unique numbers relating to certain computers or networks) has spotted that changes are being made to a page relating to the crash.

It appears that an Internet user from within the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK) changed a Russian language version of a page listing civil aviation accidents to say that "The plane [flight MH17] was shot down by Ukrainian soldiers".

That edit replaced text – written just an hour earlier – which said MH17 had been shot down "by terrorists of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic with Buk system missiles, which the terrorists received from the Russian Federation."

There are also indications that rebels on the crash site itself may have looted luggage and belongings of the victims. Alexander Borodai, the PM of the Donetsk People's Republic, has said that people may have used credit cards belonging to the 298 people killed in the crash. The Dutch Banking Association has issued a statement saying that it may take “preventive measures” and that any fraud would be compensated with payments to the victim’s next of kin.